Shattered Margins, 2023

"Shattered Margins is a 70,000 word science fiction medical thriller that picks up a century later where H.G. Wells's The Island of Dr. Moreau left off. Dr. Kaz Smith is an "almost" man. He's almost rich, almost happy, and, as of this morning, almost dead. After he gets home from a night shift in a small New Mexico hospital emergency department, a woman comes to his front door, imploring him to leave immediately. But she won't say why. Naturally, Kaz is reluctant to go with her, until she points to two military-grade "helpers" who had come through the back. Together, along with a ferret named "Shakespeare," they begin a journey to an underworld. Kaz discovers while scientists have been doing genetic engineering for the past century, nature has been hard at work for the past 200,000 years. In the dark and faraway places from which few return, two tribes of human hybrids have emerged. Each has its own opposing agenda to "save humanity." One wishes a single world government, while the other wants a number of independent states. But one tribe is facing extinction from a mysterious disease. Their loss could mean humans will be reduced to what their opponents call their "natural state" as herd animals under the rule of a single dictator. In a race to save the tribe, Kaz faces political intrigue, betrayal, and attempted assassination while being forced to confront questions of his past, the raw limits of scientific truth, and what it means to be human." -- Abstract